Tag Archives: matt stajan

More Hockey Talk As The NHL GMs Meet in Florida

Posted on March 9, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

There were nine NHL games on Tuesday night in the NHL, five more on Wednesday and 10 more on Thursday night. After 14 days at the Olympics, the NHL has a lot of catching up to do. It will be difficult to keep up.

In the meantime, from new rules regarding hits to the head, possible new shootout rules and a lawsuit against the former owner of the Phoenix Coyotes, this is just about the busiest March of the decade.

Let’s look a little deeper inside the NHL…

1) On Sunday, the 92-CITI-Sports Machine was in St. Paul, Minn., to watch the suddenly strong Calgary Flames drill the Minnesota Wild 5-2. So what suddenly changed in Calgary?

Simple, as we told you on Sunday, Flames head coach Brent Sutter put Jarome Iginla on a line with Rene Bourque And Matt Stajan and on Sunday, the line combined for 10 points as Iginla had his 10th career hat-trick.

Not bad, for only the second game together and they were pretty darn good on Tuesday night in their third game together. Bourque and Iginla each scored once and added an assist and the Flames won (4-2)  a rare one in Detroit.

2) If there was one team that would frighten me if I were the San Jose Sharks or Chicago Blackhawks, it would be the Detroit Red Wings.

The Wings have been banged up all season long. For months, they had at least three of their best players out of the lineup. They were half a hockey team for much of the season. But now they’re healthy, the playoffs are beckoning and if Jimmy Howard gets the job done, the Wings could be the sleeper of the playoffs.

But first, they have to play better than they did against Calgary on Tuesday night.

3) This weekend while I was in St. Paul, a number of hockey experts watched the newly formed Iginla-Stajan-Bourque line and wondered aloud which line was the best in the game today.

A couple suggested Alexander Ovechkin-Alexander Semin and anyone on the other side, but the consensus seemed to be that the best line in the NHL was New Jersey’s No. 1 line of Zach Parise, Jamie Langenbrunner and Winnipeg’s own Travis Zajac.

If nothing else, it’s one of the few lines in the NHL that has been together for most of the season and it provide salmost all of New Jersey’s scoring.

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It’s Run-To-The-Playoffs Time in the NHL.

Posted on March 7, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

ST. PAUL, Minn. – As the Calgary Flames whipped the Minnesota Wild 5-2 on Sunday afternoon, the NHL started its run to the playoffs.

Most NHL teams now have 16-18 games left this season. We’re solidly past the three-quarter-pole and there are just five weeks left in this rather odd season.

After a 14-day break for the Olympics, the NHL is loading up on games and there will be some tired superstars once the playoffs roll around. Until then, let’s take a quick look around The League.

1) Monday night (actually Tuesday morning at 12:10 a.m.), I’m Eric Nelson’s guest on the Eric Nelson Show on 8-3-0 WCCO radio in Minneapolis and we taped the segment on Sunday at the Xcel Energy Center.

Eric asked me to set the NHL’s final four. I told him, Chicago and San Jose in the West and Pittsburgh and Washington in the East. He then asked, “Which teams are the darkhorses?” I told him that question was more fun.

In the West, Detroit is finally healthy and they could be scary when it counts if Jimmy Howard can get the job done in goal. I like Vancouver, too, if Roberto Luongo doesn’t choke like a dog as he did last year.

In the East, I like Buffalo and New Jersey because they both have great goaltenders (Ryan Miller and Martin Brodeur). As Brian Burke always said, “We call it the Stanley Cup playoffs because we can’t call it goalie.” He may not have been right about Ian White, Alexei Ponikarovsky or Matt Stajan, but he’s right about that.

2) There was a time in the late 1990s and early 2000s when a Canadian player in the NHL’s Top 10 in scoring was a rarity. A decade ago, the stats were dominated by Europeans.

However, while Euros such as Alex Ovechkin and Henrik Sedin are at the top of the NHL’s scoring stats today, there are now five Canadians and one American in the Top 10. What is even more interesting is that Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby took over the goal-scoring lead on Saturday with his 43rd and 44th and young Steven Stamkos scored his 40th of the year on Saturday. Youth is also being served.

Maybe that Canada-U.S. Olympic final will be a trend, not a fluke.

3) Metis star Rene Bourque hadn’t scored a goal in 15 games until Calgary Flames head coach Brent Sutter put him on a line with Jarome Iginla and Matt Stajan. You’d think it was the return of the Hot Line.

Sunday night at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn., the Bourque-Stajan-Iginla line combined for 10 points as the Flames drilled the Wild 5-2. Iginla had three goals and an assist, Stajan had two assists and Bourque, suddenly playing the best hockey in more than a month, had a goal and three assists.

The Flames have been struggling, but since Sutter created this line, Calgary has won two straight solidified their hold on ninth and are now only one point out of eighth and two points out of seventh.

At this stage of the season, a simple move like a line change can positively alter a team’s fortune. Sutter’s decision to create the Bourque-Stajan-Iginla line might have been the move that gets Calgary into the playoffs.

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Leafs Change Course. Team Barely Recognizable.

Posted on February 1, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke did not mince words yesterday.

After cutting two huge deals, one with the Calgary Flames and the other with the Anaheim Ducks, Burke quipped: ”We’re still open for business. We’re not done.”

Obviously, Burke has decided that his lousy Leafs were indeed really, really lousy, so it’s time to overhaul the franchise.

On Sunday, Burke shipped out six players and got four in return.

First, the Leafs sent their best player so far this year, Steinbach’s Ian White, along with Matt Stajan, Nicklas Hagman and Jamal Mayers to the Calgary Flames in exchange for defensemen Dion Phaneuf and Keith Aulie and winger Fredrik Sjostrom. Then, the Leafs dealt goalie Vesa Toskala and forward Jason Blake to Anaheim in exchange for goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere.

Wow! At 17-28-11, the Leafs were desperate. Now they’re younger. But are they better?

“It was definitely a shock, but I’m very excited about going to Toronto and being a Maple Leaf,” Phaneuf told TSN.

“It’s a cliche. If Wayne Gretzky can get traded, anyone can get traded. I was very surprised, but on the other hand I’m very excited to be going to the biggest hockey market in the world.”

I understand that when a player is traded he has to say nice things about his new team. And I also understand that Canadian-born hockey players always say the right thing. I get all that. But in this case Phaneuf is lying through his mouthguard.

Saturday he was playing defence on a team in a big slump, but a team that will still make the playoffs. Sunday, he finds himself playing for a team that won’t finish .500.

The Leafs, after all, are tied with Carolina for last-place overall in the Eastern Conference.

In the end yesterday, the Leafs gave up White (a plus-one on a minus-48 team who was having a career year and always said he was “honoured” to be a Toronto Maple Leaf), Stajan, Hagman, Mayers, Toskala and Blake — six NHL-caliber players — and got Phaneuf, Aulie, Sjostrom and Giguere — three NHLers and a Marlie — in return.

Does that make them better? One can’t imagine.

After all, the Leafs were 11 games under .500 after a loss to Vancouver on Saturday. One day later they’re barely recognizable.

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